The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern_ Knockout Dishes With Down-Home Flavor - Matt Lee [8]
10 ounces celery (about 4 large ribs)
½ cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon celery seeds
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
12 ounces (1½ cups) Kentucky bourbon or Tennessee whiskey
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (from 2 to 3 lemons)
12 ounces (1½ cups) seltzer water or club soda (optional)
Celery tops, for garnish (optional)
1 Chop the celery into pieces, put them in a food processor with 1 tablespoon of the sugar, the celery seeds, and the salt, and process until the celery is a loose purée. Pass the liquid through a fine-mesh strainer, pressing the pulp to extract as much flavor as possible. You should have about ⅓ cup.
2 Add the celery juice and remaining sugar to a small saucepan, and warm the mixture over medium heat just until the sugar dissolves. You should have about 1 cup celery syrup. (Covered with plastic wrap, the syrup will keep in the refrigerator for 1 week.)
3 Fill six 9-ounce julep cups to the rim with crushed ice. Add 2 ounces bourbon, a tablespoon of lemon juice, and 2 to 2½ tablespoons of celery syrup to each glass, and stir. Top up with seltzer, if desired, and garnish with the celery tops if using.
PEACH ICED TEA
serves 8 • TIME: 20 minutes preparation, 45 minutes refrigeration
We drink gallons of iced tea year-round, and like most southerners, we drink it sweet. But in the summer months we add sunny-syrupy flavor by stirring in peaches that we’ve liquefied in a blender. The tree-ripened peaches we get from Sanders Peach Stand in Filbert, South Carolina, have such an intense, honeyed sweetness that this tea needs no added sugar whatsoever. If you use unripe peaches or ones that have been trucked in from far away, you may need to add a teaspoon or so of sugar or honey, as you wish.
6 regular-size bags Lipton, Luzianne, or other orange pekoe black tea
1 pound ripe freestone peaches, pitted (skins left on) and cut into wedges
1 Bring 2 cups cold water to a boil in a saucepan or kettle. Put the tea bags in a heatproof pitcher and pour the boiling water over them. Let steep for 15 minutes.
2 While the tea steeps, put the peaches in a food processor and process for about a minute and a half, until they have become a smooth, thick liquid.
3 Press the tea bags gently against the side of the pitcher with a wooden spoon to extract the liquid remaining in the bags, and discard the bags. Add 4 cups cold water. Stir in the peach puree, and refrigerate for 45 minutes.
4 Strain the tea through a fine-mesh strainer or a folded-over piece of cheesecloth into a serving pitcher. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve (or for up to 3 days).
5 Pour the tea into tall glasses filled two-thirds to the rim with ice cubes.
get your drink on!
peach tea julep For each cocktail, pour 4 ounces (½ cup) Peach Iced Tea into a rocks glass filled with ice cubes. Add an ounce of your favorite bourbon or Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey. Garnish with a slice of fresh peach.
LOWCOUNTRY POUSSE-RAPIÉRE
serves 4 • TIME: 5 minutes
A pousse-rapière—“rapier’s thrust” in French—is a champagne cocktail, invented in Gascony, that consists of dry champagne kissed with a small amount of Armagnac, a brandy distilled in the region. Though the name implies a thin, sharp, deadly drink, this fizzy cocktail is anything but: imagine an invigorating sip of racy, dry champagne followed by a mellow sweet-fruit note. It’s rounded, baroque, life-affirming.
Our Lowcountry take on the cocktail substitutes a dose of plum brandy syrup from the jar of the brandied plums we keep in the fridge (we garnish the drink with a slice or two of brandied plum). We pour it whenever life seems crushingly humdrum—a pile of dirty laundry to wash, or an afternoon of long-overdue vacuuming ahead—but it’s also a knockout aperitif on special occasions, and nicely lower in alcohol than a spirit-laden cocktail. Your guests can still hold